EINSTEIN ON COSMIC RELIGION

EINSTEIN

ON COSMIC RELIGION
AND OTHER OPINIONS
& APHORISMS

With An Appreciation By

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

Grateful Acknowledgement is hereby made to the New
York Times Magazine for Cosmic Religion; to the Jewish
Telegraph agency for material from its files; and to the
New History Society for Militant Pacifism.

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Contents

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 4

AN APPRECIATION 14

BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

COSMIC RELIGION 20

PACIFISM 27

MILITANT PACIFISM 28

DISARMAMENT 31

NOTES ON PACIFISM 33

THE JEWS 35

THE JEWISH HOMELAND 36

ADDRESS DELIVERED IN LONDON 43

OPINIONS AND APHORISM 46

ON RADIO 47

ON SCIENCE 49

MISCELLANEOUS 53

3

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

The following sketch has been prepared by the publishers,
in the belief that it may prove of aid to the readers of this
book, and is based, in part, on material prepared by Dr.
Einstein's representatives, and on various published
articles and books.

Albert Einstein, discoverer of the theory of
relativity, and one of the greatest thinkers of the
modern era, was born at Ulm, on the Danube,
March i 1879. His early years were spent in Munich
where his father had become part owner of an
electro-technical plant, and it was here that the boy,
who, curiously enough, showed no extraordinary
aptitude or brilliance as a student, nevertheless
received the initial impulses which turned his
thoughts to physics. His childhood was anniversary
has just been signalized in world-wide
demonstrations and celebrations burst upon an
unprepared and skeptical scientific world. This
event was the publication in the Annals of Physics
(Anna/en der Physik) of Einstein's first statement
of what later was to become famous as the Special
Theory of Relativity. He was then 26 years old, and
the scientists of the day laughed at the obscure

4

heretic who thus boldly challenged the Newtonian
law of gravitation and the physical universe
postulated by the great Englishman. That first essay
was called On the Electro Dynamics of Moving
Bodies and it has been the basis for his life-work.
All that Einstein has since done has been in the
nature of expansion and clarification of that initial
statement.

Tie became assistant professor at the Zurich
Academy in 1909. In 1911 he was offered and
accepted a professorship at Prague, but two years
later he returned to Zurich as Professor in
Theoretical Physics at the Polytechnic Academy
where he had been educated. Some months prior to
the outbreak of the World War he was called to the
Prussian Academy of Sciences at Berlin and was
appointed Director of the newly-founded Kaiser
Wilhelm Institute for Physics. With this
appointment came the opportunity to arrange and
formulate the daring speculations which had
occupied his thought during the preceding lonely;
the mechanical regulations of the schools and their
rigid, unimaginative enforcement— the inevitable
concomitants of the German education of his day —
were a severe trial to his sensitive spirit and he
found refuge for his inarticulate longings in a
profound religious feeling which he soon began to
express in brief songs. After several years, the
decline of his father's business compelled the

5

family to move to Milan, and their comfortable,
middle-class life came to an end. Einstein was by
then 15 years old and his period of care began.

In Milan he left school for a while to study art. Italy
was more congenial to his spirit than his native
Germany — the curious affinity of intellectual
Germans for the warmer Italian sky is here again
demonstrated — and his genius began to develop.
The necessity for earning a living sent him to
Zurich to enter the Polytechnic Academy. He failed
in his first attempt but a year later, after a course at
the Canton School of Aarau, he succeeded in
entering and soon displayed outstanding ability in
mathematics and physics. He remained in
Switzerland for several years, following his student
years as an instructor at Zurich and in 1902
assuming a post in the Bern Patent Office where he
served as engineer and technical advisor. His free
time he devoted to the pursuit of his own scientific
speculations.

In 1905 the event whose twenty-fifth eight years
and he now began the preparation of his great
work, finally published in 1916, as The General
Theory of Relativity. This work he has since
subjected to several modifications as the lines of his
own investigations suggested, and in 1929 he
announced his Unitary Field Theory, which is an
attempt to reduce the laws of gravitation and
electro-magnetics to a unified system of

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coordinated mathematics. This fusion he achieves
by the use of a new kind of space-time geometry
specially designed for the purpose. Recently, in
various ad dresses, he has announced that his next
step would be to bring the submicroscopic world of
electrons and protons, as well as quanta, into the
fold of one unified mathematical law. And he has
also stated his new hypothesis of space as the one,
all- embracing reality.

1c 1c 1c

This bare account outlines the life-work of the most
original and daring speculative thinker and
scientific investigator since Newton. Einstein's
fame rests on his two published theories and on the
astronomical observations of physical phenomena
which confirmed them. He has overthrown
universe which endured for three centuries and in
its place has constructed a new one, incapable of
comprehension to man's senses but subject to
imprisonment and expression within the symbols
of Einstein's mathematical formulas. He has
destroyed the hitherto existing foundations of all
physical science; he has added another dimension
to the universe — time; and he has introduced us to
this new universe which, per haps within the span
of another four or five generations, will become as
commonplace to the ordinary man as is the present
one.

7

Save in such elementary examples by which the
newspaper public has been instructed, no simple,
general statement of Einstein's theories is possible
and no at tempt to define it need here be made. For
the reader who is interested, there are several good
analyses in English which meet the demands of the
non-technical, lay student. What is important to
mention, how ever, is the fact that the central idea
of his work is a problem which has long occupied
the minds of philosophers. Relativity, in itself, is
not a new idea. The problem has been recognized
for generations and the mind of man has long
wrestled with its implications. But there is a vast
difference between the philosopher who says "My
idea of the world is the real world. But my
neighbor has his own idea of the world and to him
his idea is equally real. Hence there is no reality,
only an idea of reality which each man makes for
himself," and the theory propounded by Einstein
which for the first time gives scientific validity to
this conception by establishing its mathematical
proofs. This is perhaps the clearest demonstration
of the fact that Einstein is the imaginative thinker
first and the scientist second. The scientist works in
observatories and laboratories and from the
observed results of thousands of experiments
announces a deduced general law which accounts
for the phenomena re corded. Einstein, the intuitive
thinker, conceives an idea, develops its
mathematical soundness, and then establishes its

truth on the basis of observed phenomena. This is
the reverse of the empirical scientific method and it
is for this reason, perhaps, that his earliest
statement of his ideas met with incredulity and
ridicule.

Well, his case has now been won. To the world-old
search for a 'standard of reference' by which to
gauge the workings of the physical universe
Einstein retorts that there is no standard of
reference. A yard stick is one yard long only while
it is at rest. Move it and it becomes shorter, and the
faster it is moved the shorter it becomes. Similarly,
we are accustomed to measure the events of our
world in terms of time, the elapsing' of which we
consider an un alterable,, absolute measure.
Einstein de thrones this fetish of absolute time. His
exact analysis of the idea of simultaneity
demonstrates that every body in motion has its
own time which elapses more slowly as the body
moves more rapidly. Thus, the watch of the
pedestrian runs faster than that of the flyer. An
hour in the coffee house is shorter than an hour in
the sub-way: we have no right to compare two
differently moved clocks; not that the sub way
clocks falls behind but that the time of the running
train elapses more slowly. Because of the slight
speeds involved in these examples, the differences
in time are infinitesimal. However, when a body
has a light-speed (186000 miles per second), its

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'time' ceases altogether, its 'clock' stands still.
Einstein has said, "If a person were hurled at the
velocity of light away from the earth and from a
certain point allowed to return at the same speed,
he would not become a second older in the interim
even though the time of the earth had elapsed a
thousand years while he was on his jour ney."

Our physical universe as we have conceived it
crumbles in the light of these teachings. Copernicus
destroyed the notion of the absolute repose of the
earth; Einstein destroys Absolutism entirely.
Nothing is absolute, all is relative. There is thus no
reality — only the Einsteinian reality of space. We do
not live in a three-dimensional world of length,
breadth, and height, in which temporal changes
take place, but in a four-dimensional universe
whose equally entitled dimensions are length,
breadth, height, and time.

How long Einstein's theories will continue to hold
good cannot, of course, be predicted. He has
himself made important modifications in them
during the last

twenty-five years, and his latest work, as yet not
finally or definitely stated, does not carry to
physicists the same inevitable logic and self-
consistency which marked the earlier theories.
Einstein is himself aware of these weaknesses and
probably these points can never be resolved until
gravitational and atomic theory have been brought

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into closer relationship. But as far as they go they
have altered the entire direction of physical
investigation and the energies of the world's
scientists for generations will stem from the work
of this German professor who is at once the most
imaginative thinker and the greatest scientist of
modern times.

* * *

Einstein the man is a much simpler person than his
fame would lead one to suppose. He derives his
greatest enjoyment from his piano, on which he
improvises, and from his violin, on which he plays
with the skill of a virtuoso. He is an ardent
yachtsman, is fond of long, aimless tramps in the
country (recall Nietzsche and his dictum that only
thoughts conceived while walking are worth while),
is deeply interested in modern world affairs, and
has lent the enormous weight of his reputation to
the service of his race in its struggle for national
autonomy and freedom from oppression. He is
what he himself describes as a 'militant pacifist'
and unalterably opposed to war on any grounds.
He hates crowds as much as he does honors,
ceremonials, and speeches. To a man of his ironic
mind, the acclaim of a multitude in capable of
understanding ten words of his published work
must be singularly amusing.

Nevertheless, the world has insisted on according
its recognition to his genius. He won the Nobel

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Prize for Physics in 1921 and in 1926 the Royal
Astronomical Society of London presented him,
with its gold medal. He has been honored by in
numerable scientific and educational institutions
and has received the homage of the most
distinguished and prominent men of his time. His
first long tour, in 1921, which led him to America,
was in the nature of a triumphal procession and has
been eclipsed only by the welcome which greeted
him on his second visit to the United States in 1930.
He stands unique and supreme among his
contemporaries greatest mind and one of the most
lovable men alive.

A whole literature has grown up around the
Einstein theories and the complete bibliography
now totals more than 4000 separate works. Of these,
a few of the useful books and articles in English are:

EINSTEIN, ALBERT: RELATIVITY; THE SPE CIAL AND
GENERAL THEORY. New York, 1920.

-SIDELIGHT ON RELATIVITY. London, 1922.

-THE MEANING OF RELATIVITY. Princeton, 1923

-THE UNITARY FIELD THEORY. Brooklyn, N. Y„ 1929.

- ABOUT ZIONISM. London, 1930.

BROSE, HENRY L.: THE THEORY OF RELATIV ITY
Oxford, 1920.

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COLLIER, JOHN: EINSTEIN FOR THE NON
MATHEMATICAL. The National Review, vol. 94, pp.
123-125. London, 1929.

EDDINGTON, A. s.: EINSTEIN'S THEORY OF SPACE
AND TIME The Contemporary Review vol. ii6, pp.
639.643. New York, 1919.

GUGGENHEIMER, SAMUEL H.: THE EINSTEIN
THEORY EXPLAINED AND ANALYZED. New York,
1925.

MOSZKOWSKI, ALEXANDER: EINSTEIN, THE
SEARCHER. London, 1921.

NORDMANN, CHARLES: EINSTEIN AND THE
UNIVERSE. New York, 1922.

REISER, ANTON: ALBERT EINSTEIN. New York,
1930.

SLOSSON, EDWIN E.: EASY LESSONS IN EINSTEIN.
New York, 1921.

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AN APPRECIATION BY

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

14

AN APPRECIATION
BY GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

(From an address delivered at the dinner for Professor
Einstein in London , October 27, 1930 )

Napoleon and other great men were makers of
empires, but these eight men whom I am about to
mention were makers of universes and their hands
were not stained with the blood of their fellow men.
I go back 2,500 years and how many can I count in
that period? I can count them on the fingers of my
two hands Pythagoras, Ptolemy, Kepler,
Copernicus, Aristotle, Galileo, Newton, and
Einstein, and I still have two fingers left vacant.

Since the development of Newton 300 years ago
there have been nine generations of men, and those
nine generations of men have not enjoyed the
privileges that we are enjoying here to-night. We
are standing face to face with one of those great
men, looking forward to the privilege of hearing his
voice, and maybe another 300 years will pass before
another generation will enjoy that privilege. Even
among those eight men I must make a distinction. I
have called them makers of the universe, but some
of them were only repairers. Only three of them
made universes. Newton made a universe which
lasted for 300 years. Einstein has made a universe,
which I sup pose you want me to say will never

15

stop, but I don't know how long it will last. These
great men, they have been the makers of one side of
humanity, which has two sides. We call the one
side religion, and we call the other science. Religion
is always right. Religion protects us against that
great problem which we all must face. Science is
always wrong; it is the very artifice of men. Science
can never solve one problem without raising ten
more problems.

What have all of these great men been doing? Each
in turn claimed the other was wrong, and now you
are expecting me to say that Einstein proved that
Newton was wrong. But you forget that when
science reached Newton, science came up against
that extraordinary Englishman. That had never
happened to it before. Newton lent a power so
extraordinary that if I was speaking fifteen years
ago, as I am old enough to have done, I would have
said that he had the greatest mind that ever man
was endowed with. Combine the light of that
wonderful mind with credulity, with superstition.
He knew his people, he knew his language, he
knew his own folk, he knew a lot of things; he
knew that an honest bar gain was a square deal and
an honest man was one who gave a square deal. He
knew his universe; he knew that it consisted of
heavenly bodies that were in motion, and he also
knew the one thing you cannot do to anything

16

whatsoever is to make it move in a straight line. In
other words, motion will not go in a straight line.

If you take a poor man and blindfold that man and
say, "I will give you a thou sand pounds if you,
blindfolded, will walk in a straight line," he will do
his best for the sake of the thousand pounds to
walk in a straight line, but he will walk in a circle
and come back in exactly the same place.

Mere fact will never stop an English man. Newton
invented a straight line, and that was the law of
gravitation, and when he had invented this, he had
created a universe which was wonderful in itself.
When applying his wonderful genius, when he had
completed a book of that universe, what sort of
book was it? It was a book which told you the
station of all the heavenly bodies. It showed the
rate at which they were traveling; it showed the
exact hour at which they would arrive at such and
such a point to make an eclipse. It was not a
magical, marvelous thing; it was a matter-of-fact
thing, like a Bradshaw.

For 300 years we believed in that Bradshaw and in
that Newtonian universe as I suppose no system
has ever been believed in before. I know I was
educated in it and was brought up to believe in it
firmly. Then a young professor came along. He said
a lot of things and we called him a blasphemer. He
claimed Newton's theory of the apple was wrong.

17

He said: "Newton did not know what happened to
the apple, and I can prove this when the next
eclipse comes."

We said: "The next thing you will be doing is
questioning the law of gravitation."

The young professor said: "No, I mean no harm to
the law of gravitation, but, for my part, I can go
without it."

"What, do you mean, go without it?" He said: "I
can tell you about that afterward."

The world is not a rectilinear world; it is a
curvilinear world. The heavenly bodies go in
curves because that is the natural way for them to
go, and so the whole Newtonian universe
crumpled up and was succeeded by the Einstein
universe. I am sorry to have to say it. You must
remember that our distinguished visitor could not
have said it. It would not be nice for him to say it; it
would not be courteous. But here in England is a
wonderful man. This man is not challenging the
fact of science; he is challenging the action of
science. Not only is he challenging the action of
science, but the action of science has surrendered to
his challenge.

When Newton said the line of nature is a straight
line, William Hogarth said the line of nature is a
curve. He anticipated our guest.

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I have talked enough. I rejoice in the new universe
that Einstein has produced.

This is a very distinguished assembly, but it is not
an assembly composed exclusively of Einsteins.
With a genius a certain solitude is inevitable. I will
ask him to remember this, that in our human way
we all have our little solitudes. My friend Mr. Wells
has spoken to us of the secret sessions of the heart.
Our lives are so small that we are too often in our
solitude like children crying in the dark.
Nevertheless our little solitude is a great and
august solitude in which we can contemplate
things that are greater than mankind.

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COSMIC RELIGION

20

COSMIC RELIGION

Everything that men do or think concerns the
satisfaction of the needs they feel or the escape
from pain. This must be kept in mind when we
seek to understand spiritual or intellectual
movements and the way in which they develop.
For feeling and longing are the motive forces of all
human striving and productivity — however nobly
these latter may display themselves to us.

What, then, are the feelings and the needs which
have brought mankind to religious thought and to
faith in the widest sense? A moment's
consideration shows that the most varied emotions
stand at the cradle of religious thought and
experience.

In primitive peoples it is, first of all, fear that
awakens religious ideas — fear of hunger, of wild
animals, of illness, and of death. Since the
understanding of causal connections is usually
limited on this level of existence, the human soul
forges a being, more or less like itself, on whose
will and activities depend the experiences which it
fears. One hopes to win the favor of this being by
deeds and sacrifices, which, ac cording to the
tradition of the race, are supposed to appease the
being or to make him well disposed to man. I call
this the religion of fear.

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This religion is considerably stabilized— though
not caused — by the formation of a priestly caste
which claims to mediate between the people and
the being they fear, and so attains a position of
power. Often a leader or despot, or a privileged
class whose power is maintained in other ways,
will combine the function of the priesthood with its
own temporal rule for the sake of great security; or
an alliance may exist between the interests of the
political power and the priestly caste.

* * *

A second source of religious development is found
in the social feelings.

Fathers and mothers, as well as leaders of great
human communities, are fallible and mortal. The
longing for guidance, for love and succor, provides
the stimulus for the growth of a social or moral
conception of God. This is the God of Providence,
who protects, decides, rewards, and punishes. This
is the God who, according to man's widening
horizon, loves and provides for the life of the race,
or of mankind, or who even loves life itself. He is
the comforter in unhappiness and in unsatisfied
longing, the protector of the souls of the dead. This
is the social or moral idea of God.

It is easy to follow in the sacred writings of the
Jewish people the development of the religion of
fear into the moral religion, which is carried further

22

in the New Testament. The religions of all the
civilized peoples, especially those of the Orient, are
principally moral religions. An important advance
in the life of a people is the transformation of the
religion of fear into the moral religion. But one
must avoid the prejudice that regards the religions
of primitive peoples as pure fear religions and
those of the civilized races as pure moral religions.
All are mixed forms, though the moral element
predominates in the higher levels of social life.
Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic
character of the idea of God.

Only exceptionally gifted individuals or especially
noble communities rise essentially above this level;
in these there is found a third level of religious
experience, even if it is seldom found in a pure
form.

I will call it the cosmic religious sense. This is hard
to make clear to those who do not experience it,
since it does not involve an anthropomorphic idea
of God; the individual feels the vanity of human
desires and aims, and the nobility and marvelous
order which are revealed in nature and in the world
of thought. He feels the individual destiny as an
imprisonment and seeks to experience the totality
of existence as a unity full of significance.
Indications of this cosmic religious sense can be
found even on earlier levels of development— for
example, in the Psalms of David and in the

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Prophets. The cosmic element is much stronger in
Buddhism, as, in particular, Schopenhauer's
magnificent essays have shown us.

The religious geniuses of all times have been
distinguished by this cosmic religious sense, which
recognizes neither dogmas nor God made in man's
image. Consequently there cannot be a church
whose chief doc trines are based on the cosmic
religious experience. It comes about, therefore, that
precisely among the heretics of all ages we find
men who were inspired by this highest religious
experience; often they appeared to their
contemporaries as atheists, but sometimes also as
saints. Viewed from this angle, men like
Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are near
to one another.

How can this cosmic religious experience be
communicated from man to man, if it cannot lead
to a definite conception of God or to a theology? It
seems to me that the most important function of art
and of science is to arouse and keep alive this
feeling in those who are receptive.

Thus we reach an interpretation of the relation of
science to religion which is very different from the
customary view. From the study of history, one is
inclined to regard religion and science as
irreconcilable antagonists, and this for a reason that
is very easily seen. For any one who is pervaded
with the sense of causal law in all that happens.

24

who accepts in real earnest the assumption of
causality, the idea of a Being who interferes with
the sequence of events in the world is absolutely
impossible. Neither the religion of fear nor the
social- moral religion can have any hold on him. A
God who rewards and punishes is for him
unthinkable, because man acts in accordance with
an inner and outer necessity, and would, in the
eyes of God, be as little responsible as an inanimate
object is for the movements which it makes.

* * *

Science, in consequence, has been accused of
undermining morals — but wrongly. The ethical
behavior of man is better based on sympathy,
education, and social relationships, and requires no
support from religion. Man's plight would, indeed,
be sad if he had to be kept in order through fear of
punishment and hope of rewards after death.

It is, therefore, quite natural that the churches have
always fought against science and have persecuted
its supporters. But, on the other hand, I assert that
the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and
the noblest driving force behind scientific re search.
No one who does not appreciate the terrific
exertions, and, above all, the devotion without
which pioneer creations in scientific thought cannot
come into being, can judge the strength of the
feeling out of which alone such work, turned away
as it is from immediate practical life, can grow.

25

What a deep faith in the rationality of the structure
of the world and what a longing to understand
even a small glimpse of the reason revealed in the
world there must have been in Kepler and Newton
to enable them to unravel the mechanism of the
heavens, in long years of lonely work!

Anyone who only knows scientific research in its
practical applications may easily come to a wrong
interpretation of the state of mind of the men who,
surrounded by skeptical contemporaries, have
shown the way to kindred spirits scattered over all
countries in all centuries. Only those who have
dedicated their lives to similar ends can have a
living conception of the inspiration which gave
these men the power to remain loyal to their
purpose in spite of countless failures. It is the
cosmic religious sense which grants this power.

A contemporary has rightly said that the only
deeply religious people of our largely materialistic
age are the earnest men of research.

26

PACIFISM

27

MILITANT PACIFISM

One of the problems of pacifism is, that when
pacifists come together, they usually have the
feeling that they are consorting with the sheep
while the wolves are out side. Thus they reach only
their own kind who are already convinced, and do
not advance very far. That is the weakness of the
pacifist movement.

The real pacifists, those who are not up in the
clouds, but who think and count realities, must
give up idle words, and fearlessly try to accomplish
something of definite value to their cause.

We all know that when a war comes, every man
accepts the duty to commit a for his own country.

Now those who realize the immorality of war
should do their utmost to disentangle themselves
from this old idea of military duty — and so become
liberated from slavery. And for this liberation I
have two suggestions: The first has, during war
times, been tried and practiced in the past, by those
who at great personal sacrifice have refused to do
war service. However, the sincere pacifists to-day
who mean to accomplish something must take this
stand in times of peace, and in those countries
where military service is compulsory the effect will
be great. On the other hand, in other countries
where military service is not compulsory, these

28

same pacifists should openly assert that in case of
war, they them selves would not participate. I
recommend the recruiting of people with this idea
in all parts of the world. And to the timid ones who
fear imprisonments by their governments I say:
"You need not fear imprisonment, for if you get
only two per cent of the population of the world to
declare in times of peace, 'We are not going to fight;
we need other methods to settle inter national
disputes/ this two per cent will be sufficient— for
there are not jails enough in the world to hold
them!"

The second method which I suggest appears less
illegal. I believe that inter national legislation
should be advocated to the effect that those who
declare them selves as war resisters should be
allowed during peace times to take up different
kinds of strenuous or even dangerous work, either
for their own countries or for the international
benefit of mankind. This would prove that they do
not oppose war for their own private comfort or
because they are cowards or because they do not
want to serve their own country or humanity.

If, in order to prove this, we burden our selves with
these various strenuous and dangerous occupations,
we shall have gone far toward achieving the
pacification of the world. I am convinced that such
legislation can be brought about.

29

I suggest to your organization (The New History
Society) that you discuss these proposals at your
coining meetings and adopt them, and I am pretty
sure that whosoever takes the initiative along these
lines, will, sooner or later, bring about such
international legislation.

I further suggest that war resisters should organize
themselves internationally and collect funds to
support those resisters in the different countries
who to-day cannot make progress because of lack
of financial backing.

I advise and advocate very warmly and strongly
the creation of an International War Resisters' Fund
to support the active war resisters of our day.

My final word to you is that those who are
ambitious and sincerely dedicated to the cause of
universal peace must have the courage to start, to
initiate, and to carry on so fearlessly that the whole
world will be forced to consider what they are
doing!

30

DISARMAMENT

It has not become a generally recognized axiom
that the giant armaments of all nations are proving
highly injurious to them collectively.

I am even inclined to go a step further by the
assertion that, under present day conditions any
one state would incur no appreciable risk by
undertaking to disarm— wholly regardless of the
attitude of the other states.

If such were not the case it would be quite evident
that the situation of such states as are unarmed or
only partially equipped for defense would be
extremely difficult, dangerous, and
disadvantageous

— a condition which is refuted by the facts. I am
convinced that demonstrative reference to
armaments are but a weapon in the hands of the
factors interested in their production or in the
maintenance and development of a military system
for financial or political — egotistic — reasons.

I am firmly of the opinion that the educational
effect of a first and genuine achievement in the
realm of disarmament would prove highly
efficacious, because the succeeding second and
third steps would then be immeasurably simpler
than the initial one; this for the obvious reason that

31

the first results of an understanding would
considerably weaken the familiar argument for
national security with which parliamentarians of all
countries now permit them selves to be intimidated.

Armaments can never be viewed as an economic
asset to a state. They must ever remain the
unproductive exploitation of men and material and
an encroachment on the economic reserves of a
state through the temporary conscription of men in
the active periods of their lives — not to mention the
moral impairment resulting from a pre occupation
with the profession of war and the moral processes
of preparing a nation for it.

32

NOTES ON PACIFISM

A pacific settlement of conflicts and the
international cooperation of intellectuals is not
possible until military service and the armies are
abolished. Men of standing would do a great
service to humanity by endorsing the refusal our
young men to perform military service. I am of the
opinion that all thinking men should take a solemn
pledge never to participate in any military activity,
directly or indirectly.

* it *

I am rarely enthusiastic about what the League of
Nations has done or has not done, but I am always
thankful that it exists.

* * *

I hold that mankind is approaching an era in which
peace treaties will not only be recorded on paper,
but will also become inscribe in the hearts of men.

•k * it

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be
achieved by understanding. You cannot subjugate a
nation forcibly unless you wipe out every man,
woman, and child. Unless you wish to use so
drastic a measure, you must find a way of settling
your disputes without resort to arms.

33

Internationalism does not mean the surrender of
individuality. There is no reason why a nation or a
race should not preserve its traditions. Why should
the Jew ignore his past? Why should he fail to call
some spot on the face of the globe his own?

I can see no wrong in enlightened patriotism, in
love of country and of race. But patriotism is no
excuse for any group of men to assail its neighbors
or to impress its point of view upon others by fire
and sword. I believe with President Wilson in self
determination for nations and for individuals.

JEWS

35

THE JEWISH HOMELAND

It is misleading to speak of the Christianization of
the Jews or the Judaization of the Christians. What
is happening is that the two groups are undergoing
a common development on common ground and
are both being influenced by the same factors, just
as is the case with the heterogeneous mixture of
peoples that inhabit Europe.

To me the real problem is this: Why do so many
Europeans and Americans bother so much about
the little handful of Jews? But we cannot answer
this question; the finding of the proper solution
must be left to the others.

The most deadly foes of Jewish national
consciousness and Jewish national dignity are fatty
degeneration— a lack of racial consciousness which
is a result of excessive wealth and comfort— and a
certain sort of inner dependence upon the non-
Jewish environment, a dependence proceeding
from the increased laxity of Jewish communal
authority. The finest elements of the human soui
can flourish only in the fertile soil of a community.
How doubly great, therefore, is the moral danger of
the Jew who has lost his kinship with his own
group and whom the people of the nation in which
he lives regard as an alien! Frequently such a
situation has produced a harsh and dismal egoism.

36

The external pressure bearing upon the Jewish
people is particularly great at present. But our
wretched position has proved beneficial to us. It
has given rise to a revival of Jewish community life
of which the generation before the last would never
have dreamed.

Thanks to this newly aroused feeling of solidarity
among the Jews, the colonization of Palestine —
which our devoted and far sighted leaders have
already brought well under way, despite
apparently unconquerable difficulties — has
achieved such excel lent results that I have no
doubt as to its permanent success. The value of this
work for all the Jews of the world is very high.
Palestine will be a cultural center for all of Jewry, a
refuge for the persecuted, a field of activity for the
best among us — an ideal that will unite all the Jews
of the entire world and bring them spiritual
regeneration.

I have seen our youth in Palestine cheer fully doing
hard labor which better and more modern
equipment could have rendered less difficult and
more productive. I have seen a supremely
courageous little band of colonists weighted down
under an enormous burden of debts which some of
their enthusiastic Zionist brethren could so easily
have lightened. These young people must be
helped as much as possible in their struggle. Their
physical well-being must be preserved. It is our

37

sacred duty; for they are sacrificing themselves for
the soul and the repute of the entire Jewish people.

We must prove that we are a people of sufficient
vigor and vitality to accomplish our great task, to
create a center and a sup port for future generations.
May the land of Palestine come to mean to us and
to our children what the Temple of Solomon meant
to our ancestors!

No Jew can truly sense this meaning un less he
joyfully contributes his share to the Jewish work,
the Jewish cause.

With the vision of genius, Herzl saw that the
rehabilitation of Palestine would lend a new
cohesive force, a new meaning, and a new dignity
to the Jewish people.

We must not merely aid in this work, but we must
adhere to the lofty outlook of the founder of the
movement.

In view of the present situation of world Jewry, it is
now more then ever necessary to preserve the
Jewish community in a vital form. This end can best
be attained by the colonization of Palestine, a work
in which world Jewry is united, and by the
fostering of the Jewish spiritual tradition.

The publication of my book in the language of our
fathers fills me with particular delight. It is
symptomatic of the metamorphosis which that

38

language has undergone. Its use is no longer
limited to the communication of purely Jewish
matters to Jews; it is beginning to embrace all fields
of human interest. This revival of our tongue
constitutes an important factor in our struggle for
independence.

The rebuilding of Palestine as the Jewish National
Home differs fundamentally from all other Jewish
activities of our time. This is a movement to aid not
individuals, but an entire nation. The Jewish people
will have to provide funds for this constructive
work for many years to come. So stupendous and
unique a task as the up-building of Palestine must
take a course of constant, gradual development.

But our work is progressing. In recent years large
and valuable stretches of Palestinian land have
become the property of the Jewish people. Jewish
hands are reclaiming more and more neglected and
waste lands and transforming them into fertile
fields and orchards.

We hope that Jewish national life in Palestine will
make sufficiently great strides to become the basis
of a new intellectual and cultural creativeness. The
Jewish people— free of petty chauvinism and of the
evils of European nationalism, living peacefully
side by side with the Arabs, who enjoy equal
rights — should be enabled to lead its national life in
its ancient homeland, so that it may again assume a
dominant r 61 e in the civilization of the world.

39

Situated as it is on the borderland between the
Orient and the Occident, the Jewish National Home
may be able to play an important part in the
development of a new humanity.

Jewish nationalism is a necessity be cause only
through a consolidation of our national life can we
eliminate those conflicts from which the Jews suffer
to-day. May the time soon come when this
nationalism will have become so thoroughly a
matter of course that it will no longer be necessary
for us to give it special emphasis.

I believe in the actuality of Jewish nationality, and I
believe that every Jew has duties toward his
coreligionists. The meaning of Zionism is thus
many-sided. It opens out to Jews who are
despairing in the Ukrainian hell or in Poland, hope
for a more human existence. Through the re turn of
Jews to Palestine, and thus back to normal and
healthy economic life, Zion ism means, too, a
productive function, which should enrich mankind
at large. But the chief point is that Zionism must
tend to strengthen the dignity and self- respect of
Jews in Diaspora. I have always been annoyed by
the undignified assimilationist cravings and
strivings which I have observed in so many of my
friends.

Through the founding of a Jewish Commonwealth
in Palestine, the Jewish people will again be in a
position to bring their creative faculties into full

40

play. Through the erection of the Hebrew
University and similar institutions, the Jewish
people will not only help their own national
renaissance, but will enrich their moral culture and
knowledge; and, as in centuries past, be directed to
new and better ways than those which present
world conditions necessarily entail for them.

A special task devolves upon the He brew
University in the spiritual direction and education
of the laboring sections of our people in the land. In
Palestine it is not our aim to create another people
of city dwellers leading the same life as in the
European cities and possessing the European
bourgeois standards and conceptions. We aim at
creating a people of workers, at creating the Jewish
village in the first place, and we desire that the
treasures of culture should be accessible to our
laboring class, especially since Jews in all circum
stances, as we know, place education above all
things. In this connection it devolves upon the
University to create something unique in order to
serve the specific needs of the forms of life
developed by our people in Palestine.

A University is a place where the universality of the
human spirit manifests itself. Science and
investigation recognize as their aim the truth only.
It is natural, therefore, that institutions which serve
the interests of science should be a factor making
for the union of nations and men. Unfortunately,

41

the universities of Europe to-day are for the most
part the nurseries of chauvinism and of a blind
intolerance of all things foreign to the particular
nation or race, of all things bearing the stamp of a
different individuality. Under this regime the Jews
are the principal sufferers, not only because they
are thwarted in their desire for free participation
and in their striving for education, but also because
most Jews find themselves particularly cramped in
this spirit of narrow nationalism. I should like to
express the hope that our University will always be
free from this evil, that teachers and students will
always preserve the conscious ness that they serve
their people best when they maintain its union with
humanity and with the highest human values.

42

ADDRESS

DELIVERED IN LONDON, OCTOBER 27, 1930,
BEFORE THE

ORT AND OZE SOCIETIES

( The Ott and Oze Societies are international
organizations working for the betterment of living and
working conditions among the Jews of eastern Europe.)

It is no easy task for me to overcome my inclination
to a life of quiet contemplation. Nevertheless, to the
cry of the Ort and Oze Societies I have been unable
to turn a deaf ear, for it is at the same time, as it
were, the cry of our heavily burdened people, to
whose voice I respond.

The situation of our Jewish communities scattered
throughout the world forms at once a barometer of
the moral standard in the political world. For what
could be more characteristic of the level of political
morality and righteousness than the attitude of the
nations toward a defenseless minority whose
peculiarity it is to preserve its ancient traditions of
culture?

In our day this barometer stands very low. We feel
it painfully in our fate. But even this very
depression confirms me in the Conviction that the
preservation and the consolidation of this
community is our duty. Within the traditions of the

43

Jewish people exists a striving toward righteous
ness and understanding that should be of service to
the rest of the nations, both now and in the future.
Spinoza and Karl Marx are the children of this
tradition.

Whoever will preserve the spirit must also take care
of the body to which the spirit is bound. The Oze
Society literally cares for the body of our people in
eastern Europe. It is working indefatigably for the
physical preservation of our economically heavily
burdened people, while the Ort Society is striving
to remove a social and economically burdensome
wrong from which the Jewish people have suffered
from the time of the Middle Ages. Because in the
Middle Ages all the directly productive vocations
were closed to us, we were driven to adopt purely
mercantile vocations.

The only effective help that can be given the Jewish
people in these eastern lands is to throw open to
them the new fields of vocational activity for which
they are striving all over the world. This is the
difficult problem which the Ort Society is success
fully tackling.

To you, our English brethren, has now come the
call to collaborate in the great work which has been
inaugurated by celebrated men. The last years, yes,
even the last days, have brought us a

44

disappointment which you in particular must feel
keenly. Do not bemoan the hardness of fate, but in
this occurrence see rather a motive for both being
and remaining faithful to the Jewish community. I
am firmly convinced that thus we shall serve in
directly the aims of humanity in general, which
aims forever must remain, with us, the highest.

Remember that difficulties and obstacles always
form for any community a valuable source of
strength and health. We should not have survived
as a community all the centuries if we had had a
bed of roses. Of that I am strongly convinced.

But we have a still better consolation. The number
of our friends is not great, but among them are men
of lofty spirit and righteousness who have devoted
their lives to ennobling the human race and to the
liberation of individuals from degrading
oppression.

45

OPINIONS AND
APHORISMS

46

ON RADIO

One ought to be ashamed to make use of the
wonders of science embodied in a radio set, the
while appreciating them as little as a cow
appreciates the botanic marvels in the plants she
munches.

Let us not forget how humanity came into
possession of this wonderful means of
communication. The source of all scientific
advancement is the God-given curiosity of the
toiling experimenter and the constructive fantasy of
the technical inventor.

Remember Oerstedt, who first discovered the
magnetic influence of electro-magnetic currents;
remember Reis, who first employed this influence
to create sound in an electro-magnetic way; Bell,
who, by using sensitive contacts, transferred sound
waves with his microphone into variable electric
currents. Remember furthermore. Max well, who
mathematically proved the existence of electric
waves, and Hertz, who first created them with the
help of a spark. Think especially of Lieben, who,
with his Fleming valve, invented an incomparable
detector organ for electric waves which
simultaneously turned out to be an ideally simple
instrument for the creation of electric waves.
Remember thankfully the army of nameless

47

technicians who simplified radio instruments and
adapted them to mass production so that they
became accessible to everybody.

It was the scientists who first made true democracy
possible, for not only did they lighten our daily
tasks but they made the finest works of art and
thought, whose enjoyment until recently was the
privilege of the favored classes, accessible to all.
Thus they awakened the nations from their
sluggish dullness.

The radio broadcast has a unique function to fill in
bringing nations together. It can be used for
strengthening that feeling of mutual friendship
which so easily turns into mistrust and enmity.

Until our day people learned to know each other
only through the distorting mirror of their own
daily press. Radio shows them to each other in the
liveliest form, and, in the main, from their most
lovable sides.

48

ON SCIENCE

I believe in intuition and inspiration. . . At times I
feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason.
When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I
was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have
been astonished had it turned out otherwise.
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination
embraces the entire world, stimulating progress,
giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a
real factor in scientific research.

k k k

The basis of all scientific work is the conviction that
the world is an ordered and comprehensive entity,
which is a religious sentiment. My religious feeling
is a humble amazement at the order revealed in the
small patch of reality to which our feeble
intelligence is equal.

k k k

By furthering logical thought and a logical attitude,
science can diminish the amount of superstition in
the world. There is no doubt that all but the crudest
scientific work is based on a firm belief— akin to
religious feeling — in the rationality and
comprehensibility of the world.

49

Music and physical research work originate in
different sources, but they are interrelated through
their common aim, which is the desire to express
the unknown. Their reactions are different, but
their results are supplementary. As to artistic and
scientific creation, I hold with Schopenhauer that
their strongest motive is the desire to leave behind
the rawness and monotony of every day life, so as
to take refuge in a world crowded with the images
of our own creation. This world may consist of
musical notes as well as of mathematical rules. We
try to compose a comprehensive picture of the
world in which we are at home and which gives us
a stability that cannot be found in our external life.

k k k

Science exists for Science's sake, like Art for Art's
sake, and does not go in for special pleading or for
the demonstration of absurdities.

k k k

A law cannot be definite for the one reason that the
conceptions with which we formulate it develop
and may prove insufficient in the future. There
remains at the bottom of every thesis and of every
proof some remainder of the dogma of in fallibility.

k k k

In every naturalist there must be a kind of religious
feeling; for he cannot imagine that the connections

50

into which he sees have been thought of by him for
the first time.

He rather has the feeling of a child, over whom a
grown-up person rules.

it it it

We can only see the universe by the impressions of
our senses reflecting indirectly the things of reality.

it it it

Among scientists in search of truth wars do not
count.

it it it

There is no universe beyond the universe for us. It
is not part of our concept. Of course, you must not
take the comparison with the globe literally. I am
only speaking in symbols. Most mistakes in
philosophy and logic occur because the human
mind is apt to take the symbol for the reality.

it it it

I see a pattern. But my imagination can not picture
the maker of that pattern. I see the clock. But I
cannot envisage the clock- maker. The human mind
is unable to conceive of the four dimensions. How
can it conceive of a God, before whom a thousand
years and a thousand dimensions are as one?

51

Imagine a bedbug completely flattened out, living
on the surface of a globe. This bedbug may be
gifted with analysis, he may study physics, he may
even write a book. His universe will be two-
dimensional. He may even intellectually or
mathematically conceive of a third dimension, but
he can not visualize it. Man is in the same position,
as the unfortunate bedbug, except that he is three-
dimensional. Man can imagine a fourth dimension
mathematically, but he cannot see it, he cannot
visualize it, he can not represent it physically. It
exists only mathematically for him. The mind
cannot grasp it.

MISCELLANEOUS

Everyone sits in the prison of his own ideas; he
must burst it open, and that in his youth, and so try
to test his ideas on reality. But in a couple of
centuries there comes another, perhaps, who
refutes him. It is true that this will not happen to
the artist in his uniqueness. It is all within the
nature of research and it is not at all sad.

k k k

Youth is always the same, endlessly the same.

k k k

I do not believe individuals possess any unique
gifts. I only believe that there exists on one hand
talent and on the other hand developed
qualifications.

k k k

In Mme. Curie I can see no more than a brilliant
exception. Even if there were more woman
scientists of like caliber they would serve as no
argument against the fundamental weakness of the
feminine organization.

k k k

Before God we are relatively all equally wise —
equally foolish.

k k k

53

Working is thinking, hence it is not always easy to
give an exact accounting of one's time. Usually I
work about four to six hours a day. I am not a very
diligent man.

* k k

The intellectuals always have micro scopes before
their eyes.

k k *

Never forget that the fruit of our labor does not
constitute an end in itself. Eco nomic production
should make life possible, beautiful, and noble. We
must not permit ourselves to be degraded into
mere slaves of production.

k k k

Hitler is no more representative of the Germany of
this decade than are the smaller anti-Semitic
disturbances. Hitler is living — or shall I say
sitting? — on the empty stomach of Germany. As
soon as economic conditions improve. Hitler will
sink into oblivion. He dramatizes impossible
extremes in an amateurish manner.

Reduced to a formula, one might say simply that an
empty stomach is not a good political adviser.
Unfortunately, the corollary also is true, namely,
that better political insight has a hard time winning
its way as long as there is little prospect of filling
the stomach.

54

Personally, I feel that there is enough technical
knowledge accumulated in the world to-day to
make conditions such as we have in Germany
unnecessary. It should be possible to produce
enough of the necessaries of life to satisfy
everybody and at the same time give work to
everybody. That, of course, means short hours and
high wages, and not, as is so often advocated,
longer hours and lower wages.

k k k

Mass psychology is a difficult thing to fathom. I
fear historians never have taken the factor of mass
psychology sufficiently into account in writing
history. They look upon events in retrospect with
the idea that they can define exactly the causes that
led up to this or that outstanding event. In reality,
behind these apparent causes there are indefinable
factors of mass psychology about which we know
little or nothing.

My own case is, alas, an illustration. Why popular
fancy should seize upon me, a scientist dealing in
abstract things and happy if left alone, is one of
those manifestations of mass psychology that are
beyond me. I think it is terrible that this should be
so and I suffer more than anybody can imagine.

k k k

I dislike to apply a yardstick to such imponderables
as genius. Shaw is undoubtedly one of the world's

55

greatest figures, both as a writer and as a man. I
once said of him that his plays remind me of
Mozart.

There is not one superfluous word in Shaw's prose,
just as there is not one superfluous note in Mozart's
music. The one in the medium of language, the
other in the medium of melody, expresses perfectly
with almost superhuman precision, the message of
his art and his soul.

56